US 506th Infantry Regiment

The US 506th Infantry Regiment is an airborne light infantry regiment of the US Army that was first activated in 1942 during World War II. It served with the US 101st Airborne Division during the war, and its soldiers went through training at Camp Toccoa in Georgia; its motto, Currahee, comes from the infamous mountain which they ran "three miles up, three miles down" every day. The regiment was stationed in England until June 1944, when it took part in Operation Overlord in Normandy, France; it later took part in Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and the push into Germany and Austria, encircling the Ruhr Pocket, capturing the Berchtesgaden in the Alps, and occupying Zell am See, Austria at the end of the war. The regiment was disbanded in August 1945 when the war in the Pacific came to an end, but it would be reactivated again from 1948 to 1949, from 1950 to 1953, from 1956 to 1984, and from 1987. Elements of the regiment would later fight in the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War.